Cat Protection calls on Minister Plibersek to declare peace on the environment instead of a “war” on feral cats

Cat Protection Society of NSW calls on Minister Plibersek to declare peace on the environment instead of a “war” on feral cats

Habitat loss and climate change are the biggest threats to biodiversity.

The Minister for the Environment continues to support the logging of native forests.

Land clearing continues unabated.

“Action” on climate change is still pending.

Obviously, it’s time to create a distraction.

Creating a moral panic about cats is a tactic used over and over again to pretend there’s a simple solution to “wicked” environmental problems.

Invoking violent language and demonising a single species is dangerous. It will not undo the environmental destruction that is taking place right now.

Just to be clear, cats didn’t approve the gas project in the Pilliga; they aren’t speed-logging in the proposed Great Koala National Park; they aren’t conducting seismic blasts in the oceans; they aren’t logging precious old growth forests. They don’t cause mega-bushfires or floods.

But people are being asked to “look over there” at a cat. To not look at barren, denuded or toxic landscapes, or chopped down trees that are hundreds of years old and that have provided sanctuary to wildlife for centuries, or dead fish and dead waterways.

Caring for the environment for the sake of all people and nature requires compassion, commitment, effort, investment, science, consultation, knowledge, ethics, community, thoughtfulness … but it’s much easier to dip into the tired old playbook to pretend there is one species, one species alone, responsible for all the ills and it’s even easier when that species has already suffered demonisation throughout history.

7 September 2023